


This Morning

by IreneSpring



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Angst, Barisi Valentine's Cliché Challenge, Fluffy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, M/M, Valentine's Day, not a lot of angst but the premise is inherently angsty, prompt 8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:07:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29471451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IreneSpring/pseuds/IreneSpring
Summary: Sonny doesn't understand why Rafael is so nervous on Valentine's Day morning.Prompt: "I hate Valentine's Day."
Relationships: Rafael Barba/Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr.
Comments: 13
Kudos: 54
Collections: Barisi Valentine’s Cliché Challenge





	This Morning

**Author's Note:**

> I did not publish on Valentine's Day, oops. Oh well. Happy belated Valentine's Day, everyone. I hope you enjoyed it more than Rafael does in this story.

Sonny wakes up in a good mood. It’s early, much earlier than Rafael usually wakes up on a day off, but that’s by design. Sonny can just slip out of bed, make Rafael breakfast, and then wake him up for Valentine’s Day breakfast and flowers without him needing to get up. 

He’s very confident that today will go well. Since he and Rafael started dating, he had been concerned that Rafael wouldn’t want to do anything too over-the-top. He got Rafael a small gift, chocolates, a couple days ago to test the waters, and when that went over well, his concerns were assuaged. They’re serious. They’re exclusive. He’s allowed to be romantic on Valentine’s Day. 

He opens his eyes and turns around to where he expects to see Rafael asleep. The bed is empty. Rafael is already awake. Sonny briefly wonders if Rafael is making breakfast but he doesn’t hear any noise. Confused, Sonny gets up and heads to the living room. 

He finds Rafael, still in his pajamas, standing in front of the dining table. His eyes are fixed on the dozen roses Sonny had brought over the night before. It had been late, Rafael had already been asleep, but they had agreed they wanted to spend the morning together, so Sonny had come over anyway. He thought the roses would be a nice surprise.

Sonny is having difficulty reading Rafael’s facial expression, but he chalks that up to Rafael feeling a bit overwhelmed. It was something he learned pretty early about Rafael: he has difficulty accepting kind gestures. Sonny doesn’t mind, and had asked Rafael if he needed to tone it down, but Rafael had emphatically said no. He likes the gestures. He just sometimes can’t make his face match his brain.

Sonny walks up to him and wraps his arms around Rafael’s waste, pressing a kiss to his temple. Rafael starts, and Sonny pulls back slightly so he can look Rafael in the face.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“Fine,” Rafael says quickly, turning his gaze back to the flowers. “I’m fine. Sorry.”

“Good. You want some breakfast?”

“I was going to make something,” Rafael interjects. “I promise I was going to. I just got distracted. I’m sorry.” Sonny blinks. Rafael genuinely looks distressed.

“Don’t worry about it,” Sonny says calmly. “I was planning to cook for you anyway, but then I realized you woke up early.”

“I’m sorry.” Now Sonny is concerned. Rafael has apologized to him more times today for _trying to cook him breakfast_ than he apologized to him at all for anything in the first months they worked together.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

“I ruined it.”

“Ruined what?”

“This morning.”

“Raf, you haven’t ruined anything. I’ve been awake for like ten minutes. The day hasn’t even started.” Rafael finally looks up at him, and Sonny is taken aback by how much genuine worry is in his face. Sonny smiles warmly at him and Rafael seems to calm down a little bit. “Why don’t I make us pancakes?”

“Okay.”

Sonny thinks the pancakes turned out well, but Rafael is picking at his food. And he’s smiling, but it’s too wide and it seems tense. Did Sonny do something wrong? Did he misread what the successful gifts meant? Is Rafael going to end things?

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Rafael, seriously, you’ve been acting nervous all morning.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want you to apologize, I just want you to tell me what’s going on.”

“It’s stupid.”

“I don’t care.”

“You’ll be mad.”

“I promise I won’t.” Rafael makes eye contact with him and then takes a deep breath.

“I hate Valentine’s Day.”

“What? Why? We exchanged gifts, and we even watched a rom com a couple nights ago, and I thought you enjoyed that-”

“I don’t hate celebrating with you, I hate the actual day,” Rafael explains. “It makes me anxious.”

“Why?”

“I feel an enormous pressure to not mess up. To do this whole ‘romance’ thing perfectly. To make sure you have the best day… and I worry about the consequences if I can’t do that.” In his life, no one has ever called Sonny intimidating. Not until right this moment, anyway.

“Did I… do something? To make you feel like that?”

“Of course not,” Rafael says sharply, wringing his hands. “It’s not your fault, it’s mine.” He gives a self-deprecating chuckle. “I told you it was stupid.”

“It’s not stupid, Rafi. I’m just sorry that you feel like that.”

“It’s not your fault,” Rafael repeats. “I didn’t say anything because I thought it would be different, because you’re different, but I just woke up with this awful feeling in my stomach and I saw the flowers and-” Sonny gets up from his chair and pulls Rafael into a hug. He hears Rafael exhale against his shoulder and runs his hands over Rafael’s back. He knows there’s more to this story than Rafael is telling him. Probably a lot more. That’s fine. Sonny doesn’t need to know right now.

“Tell you what, Rafi. We’re going to have the most unromantic Valentine’s Day in human history. We’re going to start by finishing your argument against Kressler’s motion to exclude, and we’re going to do that until lunch. Then, for lunch, we’re gonna get McDonald’s. After that, we’re gonna clean the bathroom and get a head start on work for the coming week. For dinner, I’m going to microwave us two of those burritos you refuse to eat on principle. Yes they will be terrible, yes they will be a bastardization of Latin American cuisine. We will eat them anyway. And then, we will watch what is in your mind the least romantic television show of all time-”

“ _Heart’s Desire_?” Rafael asks with a smile. Sonny’s heart leaps at how genuine it looks.

“ _Heart’s Desire._ Kind of hard to feel bad about your romance skills when Bethany is probably gonna tell Charles that he’s her favorite snack, right?” Rafael laughs at that, and Sonny beams. “So we’ll watch that until your brain melts out of your ears or we fall asleep on the couch, deal?”

“Deal,” Rafael says. He loops his arms around Sonny’s neck and pulls him down for a kiss. It gets long, and Rafael’s holding his face. When they pull away, Rafael looks happy. “Why did the universe decide I deserve you?” he whispers, as Sonny wraps an arm protectively around him.

_You survived whatever is the root of that anxiety_ , Sonny thinks to himself, but he doesn’t say that.

“I was just wondering the same thing about you,” he says instead, and is rewarded by Rafael pressing his cheek against his shoulder.

“Sonny?” Rafael asks, the question partly muffled.

“Hmm?”

“Can you not get me roses anymore? They… bring up bad times.” That, Sonny knows, is the closest he’s going to get to an answer about why Rafael hates Valentine’s Day.

“Of course, Raf. What flowers would you like instead?”

“Surprise me.”

**Author's Note:**

> There will be much more on Sonny getting Rafael flowers two prompts from now (predictably, it's the prompt for "what are the flowers for?")
> 
> Shameless promotion of another story of mine: Wondering more about Rafael's past? It's explored more in "Scenes from Forlini's (and other, less important places)" which is kind of the central fic/document for the SVU universe I've created. Pretty much, if you're confused by anything in these one shots, the answer is probably in there. If you don't want to read the 90,000+ words, just comment what you want more info about (or if you want just the Barisi content without the first half of the story that focuses more on Alex's career/Cabenson) and I'll comment the relevant chapters.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading!


End file.
